Describes a research project designed to provide baseline data on the relationship between people's use of the public library and use of the Internet. A national survey was conducted to estimate the number of people using the library, the Internet, both, or neither, and to describe behaviors of people in each segment related to use or nonuse of…

Describes study of administrative data from Northern Ireland on the costs of family and child care services, using small area utilization modeling, to derive a new set of needs indicators that could be used within the family and child care capitation funding formula. Argues that small area utilization modeling produces a fairer and more equitable…

Examined feasibility of linking administrative data sets for evaluation of home visiting as a strategy for reducing incidence of child abuse and neglect. Also examined associations between family characteristics and subsequent child maltreatment. Found home visiting efforts were targeted to the populations most at-risk for child maltreatment.…

Discusses Edina School District's School Profiles composed of multiple indicators from student achievement assessment results, school demographic data, and survey responses. Focuses on student, staff, and parent surveys, and shows how the surveys were developed, presented, and used by the schools to support comprehensive and ongoing efforts to…

This case study of one elementary school describes an ongoing effort to close the gaps between literacy research and practice in order to promote the successful literacy transitions of all students. Jefferson Elementary School's reading program is a research-driven, school-wide program emphasizing prevention-based instruction, early…

This article describes a 2-year study that examined the influence of collaborative inquiry on the professional growth of beginning teachers. Participants include 10 novice teachers and 2 university faculty members. Using qualitative methods, the university faculty collected data during the first 2 years of the group's progress in order to…

A web-based learning system has been developed to facilitate question-posing, peer-assessing, item-viewing and drill-and-practice learning activities. In this paper, the pedagogical basis underlying the design and development of the system is explained in the light of information-processing theory, social construction of knowledge theory and…

Schools gather, store and use an increasingly large amount of data. Keeping track of everything from bus routes to building access codes to test scores to sports equipment is done with the help of electronic database programs. Large databases designed for budgeting and student record keeping have long been an integral part of the educational…

The last decade has seen enormous expansion in the use of psychotropic medications to treat behavioral and emotional disorders in children and adolescents. Because much prescription of these agents is off-label, serious attempts are being made to encourage pharmacological research in children. Without examining the data upon which government…

Teacher-librarians are awash in data. Studies on the impact of school library programs on student achievement have now been replicated in 12 states (more are in the works) with amazingly consistent results, these are added to studies dating from the early 1960s that support the importance of school library programs to student achievement and the…

It would be kind to say that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) was dawdling in its analysis of the data on charter schools that were collected by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). ED collected the data with the regular NAEP assessment in 2003 and placed the regular data on its website in the fall of 2003. The American…

Although reports of academic cheating are abundant, there are relatively few papers in the literature that focus on cheating in the context of science courses and even fewer that address dishonest practices, such as "cooking" or fudging data, within the classroom laboratory. This paper briefly reviews the existing literature on academic dishonesty…

Universities face enormous problems. Their survival depends on how they respond to persistent budgetary cuts from public sources, conflicting expectations from varying constituencies, and competitive pressures from competing training organizations. As they search for institutional arrangements that will be conducive to their success in the face of…

In 2002 Shell Creek Watershed Improvement Group turned to the Newman Grove Public Schools' science department to help educate the public on water quality in the watershed and to establish a monitoring system that would be used to improve surface and groundwater quality in the creek's watershed. Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality provided…

Testing accommodations allow students with disabilities to both participate in and demonstrate their knowledge and abilities on statewide assessments. This article discusses accommodation-related research findings of a 3-year federally funded research study. The data analysis includes an examination of accommodation policies and discipline rates…